States that suffered the greatest number of foreclosures, until recently largely hotbeds for discounted foreclosures and short sales, are leading the nation in price gains.

Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased on a year-over-year basis by 4.6 percent in August 2012 compared to August 2011, the biggest year-over-year increase since July 2006, according to CoreLogic’s Home Price Index. The August 2012 figures mark the sixth consecutive increase in home prices nationally on both a year-over-year and month-over-month basis. The HPI analysis from CoreLogic shows that all but six states are experiencing price gains.

Excluding distressed sales, home prices nationwide increased on a year-over-year basis by 4.9 percent in August 2012 compared to August 2011. On a month-over-month basis excluding distressed sales, home prices increased 1 percent in August 2012 compared to July 2012, also the sixth consecutive month-over-month increase. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.

States that lost the most value during the decline from April 2006 to August 2012 were Nevada (-54.7 percent), Florida (-44.3 percent), Arizona (-42.0 percent), California (-37.7 percent) and Michigan (-36.5 percent). Among the top states with the highest home price appreciation are: Arizona (+18.2 percent), Nevada (+9.0 percent), Florida (6.9 percent) and California (5.5 percent).

CoreLogic forecast that September 2012 home prices, including distressed sales, are expected to rise by 5 percent on a year-over-year basis from September 2011 and fall by 0.3 percent on a month-over-month basis from August 2012 as the summer buying season closes out. Excluding distressed sales, September 2012 house prices are poised to rise 6.3 percent year-over-year from September 2011 and by 0.6 percent month-over-month from August 2012. The CoreLogic Pending Home Price Index is based on Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data that measure price changes in the most recent month.

“Again this month prices rose on a year-over-year basis and our expectation is for that to continue in September based on our pending HPI forecast,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “The housing markets gains are increasingly geographically diverse with only six states continuing to show declining prices.”

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